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Anonymous Isn't Anonymous Anymore
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently some small security firm has been able to determine the real identities of several key Anonymous hackers which is resulting in a ton of arrests. From the article: 'An international investigation into cyber-activists who attacked businesses hostile to WikiLeaks is likely to yield arrests of senior members of the group after they left clues to their real identities on Facebook and in other electronic communications, it is claimed.'"
Even a completely headless organization does have people who direct the masses. Even the simplest and most spontaneous mobs have their provocateurs - the 'leaders', so to speak. I'm thinking the media simply got all breathless about how they were labelled.
Also, technical skill is not uniformly high across the group (perhaps a ratio of 10k script kiddies for every 20 actual hackers, etc).
It wouldn't be unreasonable to have major organizers being caught (CnC and direction has to come from *somewhere*, after all), or perhaps (but less likely) catching the more technically-minded members.
Even if they didn't catch 'em all, taking out a large percentage of the technical leads* or Command/Control leads* would be sufficient to do some serious damage.
* note that I have zero idea what to actually call them, but the terms should suffice.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
No, you do not understand Anonymous. I'm not sure if anyone really does, but you're QUITE off the mark. Anonymous has no "core group of fanatics" because at any one time, Anonymous is engaged in fifty different things on different scales, and that "core group of fanatics" is never the same across all of them. Most raids in Anonymous have no "core group". Someone makes a suggestion, gets the snowball rolling downhill, and once it accumulates enough mass, all you can do is watch. This is the case with most Anonymous raids. Sometimes a person or subgroup of Anonymous can try to lead a raid, but they can only do so much as the misanthropic bastards start running amok. In the case of the DDoS attacks here, there were likely a number of these subgroups all jockeying for a piece of the action. There are still no "senior members" of Anonymous and there are no "co-founders" of Anonymous. Moot is the closest thing to a founder, but even he knows that he's somehow created a monster that cannot be controlled.
I think your primary mistake was calling Anonymous a "movement". That is complete crap. They're not a movement. They really have no goals or aspirations other than fucking around on the internet, maybe in IRL if they feel brave. They're a huge, unorganized mass of bored teenagers, for the most part. They don't have a cause. They're not trying to affect social change. They may hop on a cause from time to time (ie, the DDoS raids we've seen or Chanology), but it isn't long before they become bored and move on to something else or internal bickering fractures whatever they're trying to do. You cannot remove the "core fanatics" because there is no single core, assuming Anonymous really has a core to begin with.
it's kind of weird to say my mistake is to call them a movement, then you talk about things the movement is doing
anonymous IS a movement. all it takes is people acting in tandem. which is what anonymous is. its about similarity of behaviors, not a social structure. you are acting like my words have no meaning because i think anonymous is a corporate entity with a physical location, board of directors and command and control apparatus. i believe none of these things
another movement might be kids buying pokemon cards or facebook gaining members or teens going to a justin bieber concert. like facebook, or pokemon cards, or justin bieber fans, there is a large group of casual members of the movement, and there is a small core of fanatics. remove the core of fanatics AND YOU HURT THE GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT
that's my point, and its a valid point, even if you don't understand what a movement is, and that anonymous IS a movement
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1% of 4chan's userbase is a HUGE number. They could each do only one thing, ever, and there would still be many left over who haven't had a chance to do anything yet. Your numbers there are entirely made up, and likely off by orders of magnitude.
"Is it so hard to tweak the Internet to make DDoS impossible?"
Yes.
No, It just requires a little thoughtful design... Amazon has rendered itself demonstrably ddos-proof. Google and Mircosoft are likewise near impossible to take down. If Cicso were to implement the proper tools, we could all have an automated way to stop a ddos within minutes of its start. Because no one has put the tools on the routers, we dont have the tools. Just because internet providers and the router manufacturers have all the foresight of a deep-water fish, doesn't make the desired result impossible.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
I think you've missed a point slightly. The arrests are not in connection with some mythical "core group of Anonymous" in the general sense, but in the context of the Wikileaks DDoS specifically. In that limited case there probably was a core group of people who "got the snowball rolling", to reuse your analogy, and at least one of them alledgedy has left clues behind to the identity of both themselves and several other members.
The Wikileaks DDoS is also something of a special case, while most of the other activities of Anonymous could be described as teenage angst blowing off some steam, the Wikileaks situation has got highly political in the last few month. It's entirely possible that Anonymous members may have been used by someone with an agenda who "suggested" that it might be a good idea to point LOIC at certain targets. If so, then that would indeed allow for the arrest of a "core group", and quite likely a few other members of Anonymous who were just along for the ride and a chance to "stick it to the man."
But that's just a wild guess. I guess we're not going to know for sure until things finally grind through the process, make it into court and the prosecution gets to lay its cards on the table.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
The media doesn't like it when they can't put people into labeled boxes.That is why Anonymous is so often misreported on. Anonymous isn't a group, it's a mindset. It's a bunch of people who think the same about a certain issue and decide to do something about it.
When Anonymous protested Scientology, I was a part of Anonymous. When Anonymous decided to send cards and flowers from all over the world to some veteran who was having a birthday, I was part of Anonymous. When Anonymous decided to track down a soldier that threw a puppy off a bridge, I was part of Anonymous.
It's not like you have to register somewhere, you just have to share the same mindset. Sometimes people do things that I disagree with, then I'm not part of that.
That said, there is no group, no leaders, no official press releases, no contribution, no clubhouse. It's a state of mind and sometimes I agree with a lot of like minded people.
Just for completeness sake, if the press is going to read this statement out of context, then please report that I'm the Grand Czar of Anonymous. I could use some more honorifics on my resume. :)